Crisis On Doona

by Anne McCaffrey

  ‘The Zreaty is at a crucial stage, as I am certain you are awarrre,” Hrringa said to Rogitel when he was finally admitted to the Spacedep subchief’s office. With Terran officials, he spoke Terran. “I have juzt been approached by an official of yrrr Poldep. He asks is it possible zat I wass given the wrrong date and hourr for the arrival of the Rrevs? I was zold to expect zem. Zey have not come. I waited all that night for zeir appearrance, and set the alarrrms so that I would be awakened zereafter by the activation of the grrid.”

  “Alarms?” Rogitel asked. His face remained still, but he felt agitated. He had been waiting for a report from the men he had hired to wait for the Reeves outside Alreldep block, and was concerned at the delay. This was a snag he had not anticipated, that the Reeves had failed to appear inside the Hrruban Center.

  The Hrruban’s tail lashed once in dismay. “Yes, motion alarrms. I do not usually set zem because no otherrs of my species are perrmitted on Arrth, and the only Hayuman outpost with a grid is Rrala, so I do not see much traffic. There is no need to arrise in the off-shifts to rrceive a nonsentient shipment, the most frrquent use of the grrid.”

  “True.” Rogitel wasted few words, especially ones that might be misconstrued.

  “The alarrms are very sensizive. Nothing set zem off, not yesterday, and not zoday. I tessted zem mysself just beforre I came to be certain that they were in worrking orrder and zey are. Zo I must ask you, honorred sir, has something happened to delay the Rrevs? Surely if they were summoned by the court, zey would have come? Zey are known to be honorrrable men. Am I in error?”

  “You are not,” the commander said. “The Amalgamated Worlds court was waiting for them.” Rogitel stood up and nodded curtly to the Hrruban. “Thank you for coming to see me, honored sir. I will look into the matter, and bring it to the attention of my superior.”

  Hrringa bowed and left.

  * * *

  Within the hour, Admiral Landreau appeared in the Hrruban Center and demanded instantaneous transport to Doona. He was upset. He had been expecting to hear in bloody detail how Rogitel’s hired toughs disposed of the Reeves and found out that the damned nuisances had not even reached Earth! Rogitel was in trouble, for not verifying that the prisoners had not been taken into custody by his hirelings and disposed of as arranged. There was only the one fast way back to Earth—by the Hrruban Center’s grid. Had someone tipped off the Reeves as to the reception awaiting them?

  Landreau had thoroughly enjoyed listening to the furor among the Doonan colonists, caused by the midnight summons of the Reeves to appear before the Amalgamated Worlds panel. What had happened? Rogitel had seen them safely to the Treaty Island grid. They had been transferred by that abominable mechanism, but the men waiting outside the Hrruban Center swore blind that neither Reeve had left the block. None of the corner monitors at each angle of the building recorded anyone passing, in either direction. Could the rumormongers on Doona be correct? The cowards had done a flit? Unless, and Landreau considered this possibility, they had been in cahoots with the grid operator on Doona and got themselves transported to some village where they were no doubt lying low until after the Treaty was ratified.

  Landreau swore under his breath. Damned cats couldn’t be trusted to do even the simplest things: like key in a proper grid destination. The wretched felines had been a thorn in his side all along. If those Reeves were hidden somewhere on Doona, he’d find them if it was the last thing that he ever did in his life.

  He continued muttering to himself while Hrringa hastened to set the controls for transmission to Treaty Island. The engulfing smoke rose around him and blotted out the Hrruban’s expressionless cat face.

  Landreau grunted in relief as he recognized the Treaty Island facility and strode off the platform. Yes, that was what had happened. The bedamned grid operator had redirected the Reeves somewhere on Doona. Why hadn’t Rogitel checked the settings? Or had the Treaty Controller do so? Slack discipline, that! You had to do everything yourself to see it done properly. Landreau wheeled, confronting the grid operator directly.

  “What is your name?” he demanded of the astonished Hrruban. All grid operators understood Standard. Had to.

  “Hrrenya,” the Hrruban replied, surprised.

  “Who is your superior?”

  “Zreaty Contrrollerr,” the cat man answered, backing away from Landreau and blinking his eyes. “He is seniorr diplomaz on Rrala.”

  “You were on duty three nights back? When the Treaty Controller and Commander Rogitel brought the Reeves here? D’you know the Reeves?” The Hrruban nodded quickly. “Where did you send them?”

  “To Arrth as I was inzructed, honorred sir.”

  “You didn’t!” Landreau shouted. “You didn’t! They never arrived on Earth. Where did you send them? Someplace right here on Doona. Isn’t that right?”

  Landreau’s rising voice had attracted attention. Out of a nearby corridor, three of the Treaty Councillors hurried toward the grid, the Controller among them. The grid operator tried to keep his dignity, tried to remain calm, but the Hayuman’s face was growing very red and, without fur to cover it, it was a terrifying sight. Grid operators were not trained in diplomatic matters, so Hrrenya was intensely relieved to see assistance near at hand.

  “Admiral Landreau,” the Treaty Controller snapped out in Hrruban. “Why are you berating our operator? You should report any insubordination or impudence to me.”

  “Where are Ken and Todd Reeve?” Landreau turned on the Controller as perhaps the genuinely guilty party in this absurd miscarriage. He stubbornly kept to his own language, too enraged to exercise any courtesy until he had the answers he had come to find.

  “What?” the Controller demanded, as stubbornly replying in Hrruban. “Are they not on Terra? You demanded their presence there three days ago. I myself witnessed their departure.”

  “What do you mean, they’re not here? Your drone there,” and Landreau swung an arm toward the grid operator, whose tail was between his legs in fear, “sent them somewhere here on Doona instead of back to Earth so they could answer for their crimes. They are my prisoners. I demand that the Reeves be produced and sent immediately to stand trial.”

  “You demand?” the Hrruban snarled, the points of his teeth exposed. Treaty Controller flew into a rage. “You have dishonored our people who live on Rrala, by using these Humans, whom you have yourself misplaced, to commit foul crimes against the Treaty which you pretend to support. If you cannot find them on your planet, then that is no fault of ours. Seek to set your own tribe in order without falsely accusing those of another.”

  Landreau’s momentum came to a dead halt. The Treaty Controller’s anger was too genuine to have been faked. Landreau was a fair judge of knowing truth from lie and the Treaty Controller obviously told the truth—or what he thought was the truth. If the Reeves had transported, why hadn’t Rogitel’s men detained them? Or did that fur-faced Hrringa assist them and send them out of the Hrruban Center a secret way? He’d never been too happy with the secrecy shielding the Hrruban Center from outside interference.

  “Naturally you would defend your employee,” Landreau began, trying another tack. “How do you know that he was not got at? Bribed? Those men should have been sent to Earth to answer for their offenses. They did not arrive. They are still on Doona!”

  Treaty Controller drew himself up indignantly, looking down with great condescension on the stocky smaller Human. “We have more important matters to debate than the whereabouts of two troublesome Hayumans. If the young Reeve does not appear at his trial, he is by default guilty and so is his partner in crime. We are constrained to continue for the next two days to work out details which may, indeed, be irrelevant. But we are by honor bound to continue.”

  He swept magnificently away, though the other Councillors did not immediately follow. The small woman who had met the Admiral on his last visit, Madam Dupuis, gazed at him steadi
ly, as if she was trying to read his mind. Did she know something of his secret plans?

  “You have no jurisdiction to search Doona, Admiral,” she said in a cold expressionless voice. “Go back to Earth. Where you belong.” She signalled to the grid operator, repeating her order in her fluent Hrruban and waited, arms folded, to see that her order was obeyed.

  Uncomfortable on many counts, Landreau had to step back on the grid and hope that the presence of Madam Dupuis meant that the grid operator would explicitly follow his orders.

  * * *

  When Ken tried to move, his head hurt, and his wrists were pressed against the small of his back. His hands were numb. He tried to turn over and pull them apart to restore circulation, but he couldn’t move. He opened his eyes to the unencouraging sight of a dull gray wall. Squirming, he tried to free his hands, but they were tied by a taut binding that allowed no slack he could use to free them. He turned his head in a quick survey. There wasn’t much light, but sufficient to see Todd’s limp body on a flat plank of wood similar to the one under him.

  “Todd?” Ken said, trying his voice.

  Todd was on a flat plank of a bed that was identical to his own. As Ken’s eyes grew accustomed to the dim light, he saw the bruises on the boy’s face, blood on his nose, cheeks, and chin, but old blood, dried. Torn clothes revealed bloody scratches and more discoloring bruises. But at least the blood was clotted and dried. Todd was breathing heavily through his mouth, not surprising, for his nose was probably broken. At least he was breathing. Ken remembered the two of them standing back-to-back, fighting for their lives against too numerous assailants.

  When the transport mist had cleared after their departure from Treaty Island, Ken had been struck across the back with something hard, like a bar. The force of the blow had dropped him to his knees. Gasping with pain and surprise, Ken struggled to his feet to defend himself against the attacking Hrrubans. Demanding that they identify themselves and repeating his own name brought no answer save for grunts at the punches he landed wherever he could. Ken Reeve had wrestled a few steers in his day and, bigger though the Hrrubans were, they only had two legs. With a well-aimed kick, he forced one attacker to his knees, kicking the sheath knife out of his hand and ducking the claws that swiped at him as the Hrruban sprang up.

  Then the prehensile tail wrapped around Ken’s waist like a snake. Their caudal appendages weren’t really very strong. They were made for holding, not subduing. Ken jerked an elbow down hard over the joint between two of the small bones under the fur. The Hrruban let out a wail of pain and whipped his tail out of reach. But then someone jumped Ken from behind, trying to throttle him. He kicked out at another who leaped at him in a frontal attack, catching him in the throat, snapping the fringed jaw shut, and knocking him unconscious.

  Another Hrruban merely lifted both Ken’s legs off the ground while the one behind him forced his hands together. Ken knew from sounds beyond him that Todd had been acquitting himself well against such overwhelming numbers of assailants. As Ken waited bravely for his neck to be broken, he felt only that his hands and legs were being tied tightly. So they weren’t trying to kill him, just capture him. He looked toward Todd, struggling in the hands of three Hrrubans. One thing was certain with so many Hrrubans around: they were not on Earth. Had they been diverted to Hrruba?

  Though Todd had the height and heft of his attackers, he couldn’t quite fight free. Years of riding and hard work had given him the strength of a mule, and the Hrrubans couldn’t pull him down. While Todd was still on his feet, Ken had hope, and filling his lungs, he started to yell at the top of his voice in Hrruban.

  “Help! Someone! Help us! We are being denied honorable treatment!”

  Todd added his voice, shouting in High Hrruban for the Speakers. Whether or not they were on Hrruba, such a cry should raise an alarm nearby. Their yelling upset their assailants. The one behind Ken began to clout him across the mouth to silence him. Ken writhed, trying to evade the blows with his bound arms. Suddenly he heard Todd’s shouts end abruptly. Then a pair of fists caught him on the point of his chin, and that was the end of his fight.

  Now Ken squirmed and rolled until he got himself into a sitting position. The sound of a throat being cleared told him that the two of them were not alone in their small, gray prison. Ken glanced over to the far corner of the room. Two Hrrubans in the harness of official guards sat in chairs beyond the end of the small chamber, closed off to the corridor by a wall of bars. Ken peered at them. They were both of a very narrow Stripe. They looked unmarked, so they were unlikely to be part of the gang that had attacked them. The narrow Stripes wore only bare harnesses, giving Ken no idea of where they were and which faction had captured them. However, he could rule out Earth because of the presence of so many Hrrubans, though the corridors beyond the chamber reminded him of Earth. They could have been taken to any one of several dozen Hrruban-settled worlds.

  “Todd? Wake up, son!” Ken whispered. He eased himself slowly along the bench until he was sitting opposite Todd’s head. Neither of the guards moved, either to help him or to make him lie down again. Trussed up as he was, guards were no more than a formality. His movement had been noticed and the Hrrubans muttered between them in Low Hrruban.

  Todd stirred, and his eyes opened. Ken noticed that his chin was dark with stubble. They had been unconscious a long time, perhaps even a day. Todd started to sit up, and winced at the pain of his bruised muscles. “Where are we, Dad?”

  “I don’t know, Todd,” Ken said. He caught Todd’s eye and then looked significantly toward the barred wall. “But it sure isn’t Earth.”

  Todd turned his head and opened his mouth but Ken intervened.

  “No, son, don’t. Don’t speak Hrruban. Just before you woke up, one of them said to the other, ‘They’re a lot more docile than Third said they’d be.’ ”

  “Oh?” Todd raised his eyebrows at that indiscretion.

  “This pair obviously don’t know we understand their language.” Ken smiled grimly. “If we keep listening, we may hear something even more valuable. Here, move toward me and I’ll see if I can’t undo your bindings. Hey, untie us, would you?” he asked the guards loudly in Terran. The two Hrrubans stared at Ken without saying a word and then went back to their own conversation.

  “I don’t think they understand Terran,” Ken said with satisfaction.

  “So does Third plan to kill us?” Todd asked with commendable detachment.

  “I think not or they’d have done so during the fight on the grid,” Ken said grimly. “No, they want us alive and I’d give anything to know why.”

  “So I can’t appear at that trial and Hrriss and I are judged guilty by my default?” Todd suggested.

  “Could be, son, since it was Third Speaker who made your innocence a sticking point for Treaty Renewal.”

  Both kept working surreptitiously to release their hands. If the guards thought them docile, so much the better for the success of their efforts to free themselves.

  Plainly bored by a long stretch, the two guards leaned together and began to speak. They didn’t bother to lower their voices, believing that their bareskin prisoners did not understand Hrruban. Their conversation was less than complimentary about the cravens they had no real need to guard. When one said that the bareskins would be easy to subdue, after all, Ken and Todd redoubled their efforts to free themselves.

  Todd got his hands loose first. He stifled an inadvertent gasp as blood rushed to his fingers, causing excruciating pain. As soon as they worked again, he moved closer to his father and unbound him. They’d have to be very careful getting their legs free. Perhaps if they pretended to sleep ... It was when Todd shifted cautiously onto one side that he realized what had been taken from him.

  “Dad! They’ve taken it.”

  “What?”

  “All the documents we were going to show the panel, to prove me innocent, to prove La
ndreau’s conspiracy.”

  Ken’s groan was genuine. In Third Speaker’s possession, those documents were pure gelignite! He closed his eyes, knowing total defeat of all he’d strived to build, all he hoped for the future of the Doona/Rrala Experiment. He couldn’t look at Todd, but the boy’s soft anguished moan told him that Todd understood the scope of the disaster.

  ON THE DAIS of the assembly hall, elders from all ten villages of Doona waited for the huge crowd of colonists to come to order. The transportation grid on the Hrruban side of the Friendship Bridge had been busy all day, bringing in anyone and everyone from all over the planet who wanted to help organize the celebration for Treaty Renewal Day. Carts and flitters full of food and decorations lined the paths outside and spilled over into the garden. Children caught the mood of excitement from their parents, who whispered among themselves about the upcoming great event.

  “Please!” Hrrestan shouted over the din. “We have much to do before tomorrow. May we have your attention, please?”

  “I’m glad I lived to see this day,” said Hu Shih, smiling through his spectacles at his friends, both Human and Hrruban. “The celebration tomorrow will be both a tribute to all the hard work we have put in and an acknowledgment of the cooperation between our races.”